By Lukman Olabiyi
Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has assured that the construction of red line rail would be completed by December and operational by the first quarter of 2023.
The governor gave the assurance, yesterday, while addressing newsmen at Oyingbo after inspecting o works on the red line rail project and stations at the Agege, Ikeja, Mushin, Yaba and Oyingbo axis of the state.
He said the continual inspection of the project was to ensure the deadline for the project remained unchanged.
Sanwo-Olu, accompanied by his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat and other members of his cabinet, said the contractor had given assurances that all physical infrastructures of the project would be completed by the end of December to allow testing of the rail line before full operation.
He said the Agege station would be walled off to restrain traders activities around the area.
He added that traders on the Yaba rail would also be relocated, saying the state government had already informed the concerned traders.
“We have been out since the past four to five and a half hours. Now, we are here at intersection of Apapa Road that takes us to Ebute-Metta station.
“The red line rail is a project that was conceived by this administration. It is a project that started by this government and you can see we are working. By the end of this year, we should be rounding up on the red line. There have been significant progress on this corridor.
“We are here to ensure we exceed our target so that the operation will start first quarter of 2023. What they are doing is that the physical infrastructure is complete by December; the stations, all bridges, all walkways, all pedestrian bridges by December so that we can start testing. Operationally, it needs to take few months. We are hoping that operation will start within the first quarter of 2023,” he said.